Creston wrote on Jan 28, 2013, 13:24:Just out of curiosity, why is it unforgivable? What's wrong with drifting?

Exactly. The original GRID had plenty of drifting. Personally I'm fine with it. GRID was more of an arcade racer than a simulator and I'm okay with slightly exaggerated physics if it makes the game more enjoyable.

The screenshots (read: renders) and gameplay footage looks like ass, which is ridiculous because the engine is capable of much more based on the previous games alone. I wish they would use high resolution PC footage, rather than low resolution console footage.

I'm looking forward to GRID 2, as I very much enjoyed the original and the DiRT series of games. I just hope there's no gymkhana or any other nonsense like that.

As already stated, FOV is entirely dependent upon the distance you are from the screen relative to its size. Those sensitive to motion sickness are especially affected by an incorrect FOV. For consoles a low FOV is an easy way to improve performance by limiting the amount displayed on screen. But it's absolutely NOT an artistic decision.

While an incorrect FOV doesn't really bother me it annoys me when developers can't be bothered adding a slider, as it's really simple to implement. It's nice to see a lot of developers have recognised that recently, with games like Far Cry 3 and Borderlands 2 providing it as an option.

Creston wrote on Jan 23, 2013, 17:07:I still can't fathom why people say the SR tech is better than the GTA tech. Obviously preferences vary, and people can like the SR implementation better than the GTA implementation, but driving in SR feels like you're playing one of the old Outrun cabinets, whereas driving in GTA feels like you're driving something with actual WEIGHT attached to it.

The GTA4 driving implementation was terrible - the cars feel like jelly the way they bounce around the road. They're quite fun to drive but it's not at all realistic. As for the SR3 implementation, I don't think that was great either but the core tech is hands down better.

Personally I think Mafia II is the best tech. The driving is a bit stiff but the visuals are hands down superior. It was only the limited scale of the game environment - and the lack of open world gameplay - that let it down. I'm much more looking forward to Mafia III, especially as it will be a next-gen title.

Beamer wrote on Jan 23, 2013, 09:41:No. People on this board get worked up incredibly over EULAs. Sometimes with reason. Sometimes not. When they mention restricting access usually not. Here is how EULAs usually go:Attorney, probably outside counsel, writes it.Attorney, inside counsel, stamps it.Developer gets a copy, says "yeah, whatever," ignores it.It goes out.

Outside counsel is trying to make sure it can't get sued for something that happens, so it includes everything. It wants to make sure that no one that gets banned for exploiting a bug (something that's valid to ban for in a competitive multiplayer game), so they write it in a way that makes it very difficult for someone to argue.

There's never any intent to abuse this, but it's someone covering their ass.

If people let it slide then it means there's potential for it to be abused at a later point. People are right to be outraged. It's one thing for companies to want to cover themselves - it's another entirely when they trample over the rights of users, which EA has a long history of doing.

I don't understand why people are so quick to defend a multi-billion dollar corporation stripping away the rights of customers.

Beamer wrote on Jan 23, 2013, 09:41:It's like the whole Instagram EULA thing. Again, Nilay Patel on The Verge, probably the only person I trust in analyzing EULAs, says that the one the internet set fire to Instagram for was actually a better EULA than the original. It had MORE rights for users and fewer for Instagram. It also spelled things out in plain English. But the original EULA was more obtuse, and it was there in the first place rather than a change that people looked to compare, so it wasn't something anyone complained about. People complained about the new, easier to read, more user friendly one, so Instagram went back to the old one. The one that gives them more control over your pictures and allows them to pass that extra control on to advertisers.

Sony's net income for last year was MINUS $5bn (it hasn't posted a profit since 2008) yet we're seriously expected to believe it will be able to buy Microsoft's Xbox brand? As long as Microsoft isn't losing money it will continue to maintain the Xbox brand as it has strong brand recognition and benefits other sectors. Microsoft had a net income of $17bn last year so it can afford to maintain a brand that doesn't earn anything, especially while Sony continues to haemorrhage money.

It's a classic flamebait article that bears no relation to reality. And Barnes & Noble as the other potential buyer? Seriously? Fucking fantasy land. Apple is the most likely suitor.

NKD wrote on Jan 19, 2013, 17:47:I'll be really surprised if GTA V comes out within a year of the console versions.

Even if it does, who cares? GTAIV was a disaster on PC and the gameplay was dated. Nothing I've seen about GTAV makes me think it will be any different. More importantly, WatchDogs actually looks like a decent game and it is getting a proper PC release.

The fact they're not willing to show off any gameplay or technical videos is an obvious warning sign. That and the trailers they've put out look bad for 2008, let alone 2013.

Creston wrote on Jan 17, 2013, 11:31:PC Gamer (so take it for what it's worth) said the first few hours of the game are basically "Watch Lara Get Tortured" porn, and your interactions are limited to "hold forward" and occasionally "press the button that the QTE wants you to press."

The previous games had QTEs as well, so it's to be expected. I'm not a great fan of them, as I feel they break immersion, but I'm not hugely bothered by them either. Saying that, I can understand why people object to them.

I was a huge fan of the previous Tomb Raider games, so I was interested in this from the start. When I saw it offered on GMG for £17.55 / $28 I couldn't resist.

As for physical distribution, it's completely irrelevant in this day and age. And regarding the lack of a demo, obviously that will put some people off but it's not a deal breaker for me - I can usually tell from the preview media whether I'm going to enjoy it and what price I'm willing to pay. I tend to only grab demos for indie games I'm not sure about.

Jerykk wrote on Jan 15, 2013, 23:23:From a technical standpoint, Crysis does have better graphics than FC3. The textures are much higher-res, the foliage is more lush and the environments are far more interactive (trees and shacks can be completely destroyed, most objects have physics, etc).

Keilun wrote on Jan 16, 2013, 16:12:I recall reading somewhere where Brad Wardell from Stardock had spoken to one of the Civ V devs who had told him that less than 4% ( of Civ V players had even bothered to try an MP game let alone finish one and that was the reason they chose to cut MP from FE.

You're still looking at hundreds of thousands of players and that's where multiplayer was never a major focus. I think it would do really well if they fully integrated it with the Steam Community and allowed simultaneous playthroughs (everyone logs in and it shows whose turn it is, with an optional time limit per-turn) rather than the current manual turn-by-turn email mode.

More importantly, Firaxis promised Pitboss multiplayer and that was years ago.

Verno wrote on Jan 16, 2013, 15:36:They did a remake of Colonization back in 2008 with the CIV IV engine and I remember not caring for it much :(

They messed up the end game, which meant the longer you waited the more difficult it became. In fact pretty much the only way to win was through exploits, by deliberately leaving your cities unguarded and reinvading. There were also bugs with the interface for trading. I enjoyed it for a few playthroughs but it was too broken to enjoy it properly.

justice7 wrote on Jan 16, 2013, 12:05:I have played 8 player multiplayer games on Civ V, it does exist.

I didn't say it doesn't exist - I said it was a "real chore". It's also not the Pitboss mode that was originally promised.

I recently noticed that they have added a touch-mode for Windows 8, so it's good to see major patches still being made. However, they really need to implement a proper multiplayer - preferably through Steam Cloud - as the Hot Seat multiplayer is a real chore.

If One World is indeed an expansion and not DLC then I'm looking forward to it, as Gods & Kings was excellent.

AngelicPenguin wrote on Jan 15, 2013, 19:28:Dunno, I think the lighting looks more realistic in the crysis video. More natural. The far cry 3 one the colors look too bright/saturated.

That's art direction more than graphics, though. FC3 is obviously over-exagerated but at the same time Crysis is over-subdued. However, look at the difference in foliage (appearance, detail, density), texture quality, lighting, etc - all of those favour FC3. I would say the lighting is much better in FC3 - if you jump to 24 secs in you see that Crysis has very flat lighting and FC3 has very much more varied more dynamic lighting (it's not just one scene though). In fact even most defenders of Crysis claim its lighting wasn't very good, whereas FC3 has strong dynamic lighting and a day/night cycle. Not that FC3 is perfect by any means, as the decision to blur out at extreme distance was terrible and it wasn't done for performance reasons, as manually disabling it improves performance - it was a design decision.

Even if you don't like the art style of FC3, it's a much more powerful and compelling engine than UE3, which is very dated now. And there are other much more impressive engines as well, like BF3. Even a lot of other UE3 games look better than BI, like Dishonored or Arkham City.

But as I said, graphics aren't my only concern with BI - the gameplay is easily my biggest concern.

That's a great comparison. I find it amazing that anyone can watch that video and suggest that Crysis has better graphics than FC3, yet judging by the comments there clearly are people who believe that. I honestly don't understand it.

Jerykk wrote on Jan 15, 2013, 16:24:As a whole, FC3 is a nice-looking game but I wouldn't call it great-looking. I definitely don't think it looks better than Infinite based on what I've seen of both.

I can't take you seriously when you make comments like that.

Looking at the gameplay videos of Bioshock Infinite, like this one, it's clear it's not even close to FC3 / Crysis levels. It looks like Yet Another UE3 Game™. And the gameplay really doesn't look too hot either, especially not after games like Dishonored and FC3.

I really enjoyed Bioshock but this game just doesn't excite me as much as it should. The gameplay looks quite dated and far too scripted.

Jerykk wrote on Jan 15, 2013, 12:29:What makes you think it won't look as good as Far Cry 3? Far Cry 3 doesn't even look that great. The interior lighting in particularly looks pretty bad and the SSAO implementations are pretty lousy too. From what I've seen, Infinite looks great (in terms of art style).

Overon wrote on Jan 15, 2013, 12:10:I game where 4 GB of RAM is recommended as well as a quad core processor? Do my eyes and brain deceive me?

Other games that recommend a quad-core CPU and 4GB RAM:

The Witcher 2Far Cry 3Crysis 3

Chances of Bioshock Infinite looking any near as good as those games? Zero. It could be that it's a poor port or it could be that they're simply being more honest that other publishers.

It's great that they're including high resolution textures but the game still looks quite low in terms of polygon counts - both for characters and for environments - and it seems it won't be supporting tessellation (it would have been mentioned by now). Still, I'm more concerned about the gameplay as everything I've seen has shown it to be an on-rails shooter. That might have been okay for the original game - especially as it was designed to be claustrophobic - but the genre has moved on and it's not set in the sky.

I'm still hopeful this will be a decent game but I won't be preordering it.